Late Thursday, while unconfirmed reports spread regarding a shooting at Brown University, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins took to social media, pointing out the conflicting information and guiding the public to her network’s 9pm newscast.
While it is by no means a flawless news source, her statement seemed accurate for a lot of people. It remains one of the broadcasters where you can find grounded and largely dependable reporting – especially during breaking news situations like the one unfolding in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious State During a Corporate Struggle
However the news network, now middle-aged, finds itself in a vulnerable state as two massive media empires vie for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the destiny of CNN has turned into a high-risk game of business acquisition, instead of as a question of what serves the information-seeking public.
“This is yet another example of the profound systemic issues with roots in decades of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a professor of media policy at the Penn.
The debate about the future owner of Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a larger point.
“It is often framed as a financial tale with key players as the central actors, but there is very little discussion of the common good,” Pickard added.
The Additional Factor: Donald Trump
This situation is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has long portrayed as perhaps his main “fake news” antagonist.
Think back to the chants of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his tense exchanges with Collins in press briefings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. You can read that as ownership that will insulate him from journalistic oversight. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a aggressive takeover attempt.
Trump has reason to like that bidder more. For one thing, it is controlled by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, owner of CBS News, also recently placed the conservative Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that historic news network.
A Possibility of Continued Uncertainty
Notably, if Netflix wins, CNN and other cable outlets would first be spun off into a separate entity. This might be a relief to many at the network, but it’s far from a guarantee of stability. That arrangement could pave the way for CNN for yet another acquisition. It never ends.
In the view of Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance wrote recently that competition laws should disallow both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be contested by anti-trust authorities,” Wu argued.
The Bigger Issue and a Path Forward
Whatever happens in this situation, the underlying crisis endures.
“What we have now is a profoundly anti-democratic system, but we must resist a sense of powerlessness,” Pickard emphasized. Government actions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this overly commercial monster, and different policy decisions can tackle it.
Is this likely in an era where the head of the FCC will not confirm that the agency is independent? Reform is highly improbable now, but that should not imply it will not happen in the future.
Initiatives that bolster independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the consolidation of media power in a handful of hands are within reach – they are vital for a functioning democracy.
In the world of media ownership, size does not equal quality. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pawns in the most recent merger game.
